Chapter 99

“We completely abandoned the anomaly we were raiding,” the fisherman continued bitterly. “Since the monsters breached the ocean, the managing guild claimed they lacked the maritime protocols to intercept them… Typical hunters, right? Civilian lives don’t mean a damn thing to them.”

“Have you attempted to request aid from other guilds?” Shin-hoo asked.

“Where would we even send the request? There isn’t a single guild willing to deploy all the way down to this rural province to help us.”

“…”

A profound sense of cognitive dissonance washed over Shin-hoo. Given the passage of four years, the national dungeon management infrastructure should have evolved into a highly stabilized, robust network. Yet, guilds were casually ignoring active outbreaks, and the civilian support system was completely non-existent?

“…Are there truly no major active guilds capable of providing emergency assistance?”

“These days, the only factions you could call ‘major’ are the Saint Guild and the Hyeonjeol Guild. Well, I suppose the Saint Guild might deploy if we begged…”

A wave of relief washed over Shin-hoo. It seemed Kanghyeon had successfully stewarded the Saint Guild in his absence. Entrusting the guild to Kanghyeon had been his second greatest lingering regret after Haeju when he accepted his death in the dungeon; knowing Kanghyeon had held the line filled him with profound gratitude.

However, the relief triggered by the familiar name was devastatingly short-lived. Shin-hoo quickly realized a glaring omission in the fisherman’s list.

“What about the Epic Guild?”

“Epic? Those elitists only raid the most brutal, uncharted anomalies with a tiny, hyper-specialized vanguard. They wouldn’t spare a single glance for a rural mess like this.”

“…”

What the hell happened? When Shin-hoo left, the Epic Guild had definitively secured its position as the number two faction in the country. Over the past four years, their combat assets should have exponentially eclipsed even the Saint Guild’s. Yet, the public perception the fisherman described was entirely alien to the trajectory Shin-hoo had orchestrated.

Did something happen to Kwon Haeju?

Navigating an entirely incomprehensible geopolitical landscape, Shin-hoo ruthlessly prioritized his immediate objectives. Analyzing the systemic failure of the hunter infrastructure would have to wait.

“Captain Lee. If it isn’t too much trouble, could you take this vessel back out to sea?”

“It’s far too dangerous right now,” Captain Lee hesitated. “Hell, I don’t even know if I’ll be able to keep working as a fisherman here after today…”

“I believe I can neutralize the threat,” Shin-hoo stated evenly.

“You?”

Captain Lee’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief before a sudden realization dawned on him. He nodded slowly.

“Ah, right. You mentioned you were a hunter. But it’s incredibly dangerous, lad. The battlefield is the open ocean, and we have absolutely no intel on the threat level of those monsters.”

“I will be perfectly fine.”

Overhearing the exchange, a frantic crowd began to swarm them. Several people violently shoved their way to the front, their faces drenched in tears, desperately clinging to Captain Lee’s sleeves.

“I-I just heard! Is this young man really a hunter?! I’m begging you! My husband and son are out on that water, and their radios are completely dead! Please, save them!”

“Captain Lee, I’m begging you too. I know it’s a suicide mission, but your vessel is the only one that made it back… Couldn’t you at least try?”

A desperate, buzzing mob quickly encircled Shin-hoo and the captain. A hunter? There’s a hunter here? Hearing the frantic, fragile thread of hope weaving through the desperate pleas, Captain Lee finally nodded heavily.

“Alright. Let’s head back out. I don’t think I’d be able to sleep at night if I turned my back on them now.”

The Daeyang Fisheries vessel roared back to life. Bracing himself against the violent vibrations of the diesel engine, Shin-hoo boarded the ship. While several desperate civilians with family stranded at sea aggressively volunteered to join the rescue mission, Captain Lee ruthlessly ordered them all ashore. Only Shin-hoo and the captain sailed back into the abyss.

As the mainland rapidly receded into the darkness, Shin-hoo sank into deep contemplation.

“…”

What kind of apocalyptic paradigm shift had occurred during his absence? Both Saint and Epic still existed, yet the public’s perception of them was completely unrecognizable. Furthermore, the name ‘Hyeonjeol Guild’ was an entirely unprecedented variable.

Historically, every guild in the world utilized English nomenclature. Because the United States served as the genesis of the global hunter infrastructure, it was a universally accepted, unspoken law. Yet, a major guild was now operating under a purely Korean name?

‘The variables have multiplied exponentially.’

Noticing Shin-hoo’s heavy silence, Captain Lee approached him.

“Are you absolutely sure about this, lad? I feel like I’m dragging a man who barely survived hell straight back into the meat grinder.”

“You are the one risking your life here, Captain.”

“Hahaha. I’m a native of these waters, lad. I still have relatives and lifelong friends out there. If there’s even a microscopic chance I can save them, it’s my duty to go.”

Captain Lee aggressively throttled the engine. Without consulting a GPS, relying entirely on a rusted compass and decades of ingrained navigational instinct, he steered them toward the established fishing routes.

A chilling, sinister aura suddenly brushed against Shin-hoo’s senses from the distance.

As they closed the gap, the malice sharpened into high-definition clarity. Beneath the chaotic roar of the ocean, Shin-hoo detected massive, violent fluctuations of demonic energy intertwined with the horrific, frantic screams of men.

The dawn was finally breaking, yet the ocean surface wasn’t shimmering with golden sunlight—it was completely blanketed by the shattered, floating wreckage of fishing vessels.

“I’ve acquired the targets,” Shin-hoo announced abruptly. “It’s highly volatile from here on out. Hold your position.”

“Wait, you can’t just—we’re in the middle of the ocean!”

Before Captain Lee could even finish his frantic protest, Shin-hoo vaulted over the railing. The exact millisecond his boots made contact, the churning seawater violently flash-froze solid beneath him.

Deploying ice platforms in the middle of a chaotic, open ocean was a highly inefficient expenditure of mana, but as long as he had a definitive target, Shin-hoo could effortlessly wage war on water.

“Aaaargh! Over here!”

“Brace for impact! Turn the rudder! Hard to port, goddammit!”

“Grab the life vests! Put them on right now! Hurry!”

Spotting a drowning fisherman frantically thrashing in the freezing waves, Shin-hoo snatched him by the collar and hurled him onto a massive, relatively stable chunk of debris.

“Gasp…! A-a person! It’s a hunter!”

“A hunter?! A hunter is actually here?!”

Ignoring the hysterical shock of the survivors, Shin-hoo launched himself toward the monstrosity currently crushing the adjacent vessel. Simultaneously, he summoned Luin Vuada. The octopus-like beast currently visible above the surface wasn’t particularly massive; the true, lethal threats were the submerged entities concealed beneath the waves.

Channeling a massive surge of explosive mana into Luin Vuada, Shin-hoo aimed to eradicate the submerged threats in a single, devastating strike. He drove the spear deep beneath the surface and violently detonated the payload.

A colossal geyser of seawater erupted into the sky, the cascading droplets catching the brilliant light of the rising sun.

BZZZ. 

In that exact millisecond, the dormant ring on Shin-hoo’s finger violently pulsed with light.

Retracting Luin Vuada, Shin-hoo vaulted upward, driving the spear cleanly through the crown of the octopus monstrosity breaching the surface. Shaking the pulverized brain matter from his blade, he seamlessly pivoted, impaling the torso of the next lunging beast.

The cephalopod anomaly went entirely limp, its massive tentacles sprawling lifelessly across the water before sinking.

Dozens of oceanic monstrosities that had completely besieged the fleet now floated as butchered corpses, violently dyeing the sea a sickening shade of purple. Ripping Luin Vuada from the final carcass, Shin-hoo sharply flicked the corrupted blood from the shaft.

“…”

The survivors, initially screaming in euphoric relief, now stared at the spectacle in absolute, paralyzed awe. The silhouette of the lone man standing triumphant upon the purple, sunlit waves was the most overwhelmingly majestic sight they had ever witnessed.

“Transfer the injured to the operational vessels and initiate immediate return protocols,” Shin-hoo commanded calmly.

“Y-you are truly extraordinary, lad. I’ve met a genuinely incredible man today.”

Having finished triaging the rescued fishermen hauled aboard his boat, Captain Lee rushed over and seized Shin-hoo’s hands.

“Thank you. Truly, thank you… I don’t even know how to properly express my gratitude…”

Tears streamed freely down the weathered captain’s face as he bowed repeatedly. The surrounding survivors mirrored his reaction. As the sheer, adrenaline-fueled terror finally snapped, the deck was flooded with sobbing civilians collapsing to their knees in sheer relief.

“You are perfectly safe now,” Shin-hoo assured them gently. “I’ve neutralized every hostile signature in the perimeter. There will be no further threats.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much…”

The overwhelming, palpable wave of salvation washed over the fleet. The men who had been dangling over the abyss of death trembled violently, endlessly pouring out their gratitude toward Shin-hoo.

Yet, amidst the chaotic, tearful celebration, a profoundly alien sensation spiked through Shin-hoo. His ring finger throbbed with a sharp, burning pain. It was the exact same violent reaction he had registered moments ago when he unleashed his mana.

The ring he wore was actively resonating.

“…!”

A colossal, violent vortex of mana spontaneously detonated near the stern of one of the vessels. The rapidly coalescing energy swiftly stabilized, mutating into a perfectly circular, spatial warp gate.

“I-is it another monster?!”

“No,” Shin-hoo stated firmly.

It was a spatial warp he had never visually encountered, yet the sheer, suffocating density of the aura bleeding from it was intimately familiar. It was overwhelmingly powerful, breathtakingly elegant, and impeccably refined.

And simultaneously, it radiated an absolute, unadulterated, apocalyptic malice.

A polished dress shoe stepped through the warp, followed immediately by the full silhouette of a man impeccably tailored in a pristine hunter’s suit. Beneath a mess of pitch-black, curly hair, piercing, unnaturally blue eyes burned with feral, murderous intensity.

“…”

He’s matured so much.

The drastically sharpened jawline and the deeply sunken, hollowed eyes spoke volumes of the agonizing hell he had endured during their separation.

For Shin-hoo, the separation had merely been a fleeting, momentary leap through a cosmic void; for Haeju, it had been four years of uninterrupted, suffocating agony.

Shin-hoo slowly approached the rigid, stone-faced man. Haeju seemed physically paralyzed, entirely incapable of processing his own explosive emotions, frozen in a state of catatonic shock. The sight violently overlapped with the devastating, desperate wailing Haeju had unleashed right before Shin-hoo forced him out of the dungeon, filling Shin-hoo with profound, aching pity.

Shin-hoo softly called his name.

“Kwon Haeju.”

He closed the final step between them. The jaw of the petrified man trembled violently. Reaching out, Shin-hoo gently covered Haeju’s tightly clenched, white-knuckled fist with his own.

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

A crushing, suffocating pressure instantly slammed into Shin-hoo. Haeju violently yanked the returned hunter into a desperate, bone-crushing embrace. It was an embrace so feral, so agonizingly desperate, it felt as though he were trying to fuse their bodies together to ensure Shin-hoo could never vanish again.

***

The sprawling nocturnal skyline of the city unfurled beneath him, as blindingly radiant as an overturned jewelry box. Between the dense forests of towering skyscrapers, the relentless, flowing headlights of vehicles painted long, golden arteries through the concrete veins.

Flashing neon signs and brilliant illumination cascading from countless windows—every single microscopic movement of the millions of living souls below overflowed with vibrant, chaotic vitality.

The metropolis continued to breathe and function flawlessly. Even though the single most critical puzzle piece of his existence had been permanently ripped away.

Inhaling the freezing night air, a heavy, exhausted sigh spilled from Haeju’s lips. It was already November. A new, suffocating winter was rapidly approaching.

Enduring winter in a city completely devoid of his heart was agonizingly, bone-chillingly cold. It felt exactly like standing stark naked in the dead center of a desolate snowfield—piercingly bitter and infinitely lonely.

Staring into the void, Haeju whispered a question to the man who could never answer.

“…When are you coming back?”

Four entire years had bled away. Yet, absolutely nothing had changed within him.

The cyclical passing of the seasons felt like nothing more than a hollow, meaningless backdrop, and the rapidly mutating geopolitical landscape held zero significance.

When would this nauseating, endless waiting finally terminate? How many more agonizing days must he endure, suffocating in a living nightmare that refused to end even when he opened his eyes?

“Did you truly despise me that much?”

Enough to abandon me in this horrific hell alone?